


Jeeves and Jeeves

by round_robin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jeeves and Wooster - Freeform, Pre-Slash, Sherlock/John friendship, not series two compatible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/round_robin/pseuds/round_robin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally makes a joke about Sherlock treating John like Jeeves. Naturally, John's offended by this, but not for the reason you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jeeves and Jeeves

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed or brit-picked, so all mistakes are mine. If you see a typo, please shoot me a comment about it so I can fix it.
> 
> This actually kind of has nothing to do with Jeeves and Wooster... eh, you'll see.

“There’s a key,” Sherlock said.

He hadn’t spoken since he first set foot on the crime scene (the muddy banks of the Thames beneath one of the bridges) not even to throw his customary greeting/insult at Anderson, which is why mostly everyone startled, including Lestrade, Donovan and half the Yard.

John however, didn’t jump. Over a year of living with the mad man, and he’d learned not to jump when he did something sudden, loud, startling, or all three. Heads in the fridge? Didn’t scare him anymore. Teeth in the silverware drawer? Just as long as they weren’t touching the tea strainer, it was all fine. John knew exactly how to handle Sherlock at his most insane (he was damn good at it) and this? Saying something in that soft, slightly-but-not-yet-manic voice? That was nothing.

“What do you mean, Sherlock?” John asked while the rest of the Yard recovered from their collective coronary.

Standing back up, Sherlock pointed down at the body. Not his most elaborate deduction. “Around her neck, she had a key. On a chain.” Those too-sharp eyes started darting all over the muddy river bank, looking for a glint of—he checked her neck again—silver. “We’re looking for a silver key on a silver chain. Everyone look!”

“Hold up a second,” Lestrade said. “How do you know she had a key ‘round her neck?” With a roll of his eyes, Sherlock started in with the rapid-fire deductions, using that voice that said “why are you not understanding? A monkey could get this!”

“There’s an indent along the back of her neck and over her collar bones. A chain, thick, heavy, good quality,” he said, eyes roving through the mud, looking for indents. “Judging by the depth of the marks it left on her skin, it was long, probably stopped somewhere between her breasts. And there was something on it. Something not heavy, but important. Why else would she keep it hidden like that?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Lots of women wear long necklaces that hang down. It’s a style. Maybe that’s all it was.”

“No,” Sherlock shook his head. John shifted a bit; he could tell when Sherlock was getting anxious. When his deductions were being ignored, it didn’t take long for him to go from mildly insulting to cuttingly cruel. And that was never a good day for anyone. “Look at her shirt—high neckline. If she wanted to use a long necklace to draw attention to her chest, why would she wear a shirt that goes up over her collar bones? No, that key was important. And we need to find it…

“John!” This time, the shout of his name did startle him. Sherlock already asked for his medical opinion, so he kind of wasn’t needed anymore. Not unless there was something icky to do. Oh hell, John thought. Sherlock was going to ask him to crawl around in the mud, wasn’t he?

But Sherlock didn’t ask him to do that. “Hold these.” Instead, John’s hands were suddenly full of Sherlock’s gloves and coat. Sherlock was in process of rolling up his sleeves and—bloody hell, yeah. Sinking his arms into the mud, up to his elbows.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade sighed. “What are you doing?”

“There’s a key!” The younger man fired back as he knelt in the mud, hands and arms completely coated in the stuff now. “The killer didn’t take it, she got rid of it. She didn’t want anyone else to have it! The indents on the back of her neck are red, and there are matching indents in her palm. When he was following her, she yanked the necklace off and meant to throw it, but he got here too quick. She just dropped it in the mud immediately around her body. Look!”

No one moved. Not one single member of the Yard wanted to climb down into the mud and help look for the key they kind of doubted existed at all. So Sherlock continued to look on his own, long fingers sifting through the thick mud, looking for a clue he thought was vital to this case. He was probably right, but even after so many solved cases, most of Lestrade’s team still didn’t trust Sherlock’s mad hunches. That’s what they saw them as: hunches. Not actual fact that the consulting detective was always, always correct about.

John didn’t bend to help either. He’d been entrusted with guarding Sherlock’s precious coat. So he stood there, watching Sherlock go, and thinking of the dry cleaning bill. Jeez….

Ten minutes later, with his shirt and trousers completely ruined, Sherlock straightened up. “Ah!” Something long and chain-like dangled down his arm, and clenched in his hand: a key. Just like he said.

With a smirk that could only be called smug, Sherlock climbed out of the mud and stalked over to Lestrade. He pressed the key into the DI’s hand with a wet plop. “You’ll find that key goes to a safety deposit box. Find the box and you’ll find the reason she was killed. Good evening, Lestrade.”

John always suspected that Sherlock could look superior while wearing anything. But covered in mud, all his clothes ruined—shirt, trousers, Jesus, shoes—and still managing to look like the smartest man in the world? John had to hand it to him: Sherlock knew. He always did.

“Come along, John.” John just rolled his eyes and started to follow.

“What?” Sally Donovan’s voice suddenly said. “No ‘Much Obliged, Jeeves?’”

John stopped cold and turned to look at the woman. “What?”

“You heard me,” she nodded. “He treats you like his bloody valet. Hold my coat, hold my gloves, follow me around and help me.” The pointed sneer on her face wasn’t attractive. Never was, when she got like this. “I bet he even asks you to draw his bath! It’s a regular scene out of Jeeves and Wooster.”

John would not think about how she was dead-on about the bath. He would only do that to make sure Sherlock didn’t get mud all over the bathroom, and it would only be for tonight. Never again. So he wasn’t thinking about that, no. As he stalked away from Sally without another word—following Sherlock’s call of “John?”—John absolutely did not think about that.

What he thought about was that, if he was Jeeves (which he wasn’t) that made Sherlock Wooster. And that was an insult on his best friend that John could not handle.

 

~

 

As usual, Sherlock was right. The key was for a safety deposit box that, once opened, was found to contain a camera. On the camera’s memory card, there were pictures of the victim and a man in some very… intimate positions. Turns out, she was blackmailing the man (who turned out to be the murderer) threatening to show the pictures to his wife. Not the most innocent victim they’d ever had, but still. Another case solved.

Sherlock moved on, instantly taking two more cases that he solved in twelve hours. With no more interesting cases, he set about with his experiments. John was—once again—left to clean up after him. He didn’t mind, really, he didn’t. Though, sometimes John kind of wished Sherlock would say thank you. Wooster always said thank you when Jeeves—no. No, no. Ugh, damn Sally Donovan, damn her straight to hell.

All week long, John had been second-guessing his actions. Was he cleaning up after Sherlock because John needed the counter space? Or was he cleaning up after Sherlock because Sherlock expected him to? Were they really friends, or had he just been a live-in maid all this time? John should not have questions like these. Sherlock proved it, again and again, John was important to him. Their friendship was important. Yes, he took advantage sometimes, but nothing outside of the realm of acceptability, and nothing so much as Jeeves did for Wooster.

And that was another thing: Sherlock was not Wooster. Hell no. That insanely brilliant, too clever for his own good, irritating man should not—for any reason—be compared to Bertie Wooster. Vacant, dimwitted, almost too dumb to exist, unable to function without his Jeeves. That was not Sherlock Holmes. Donovan could say what she wanted about John, but not Sherlock. She couldn’t say _that_ and get away with it.

John had a plan: the next time they got a call from Lestrade, he was going to take Sally aside and tell her that talk like that wouldn’t fly. She could insult him all she liked (though she rarely did) just leave off Sherlock’s intelligence. They all knew he was smarter than the whole Yard combined, so just stuff it, alright Sally? Just stuff it.

“John!” Sherlock called one night.

“Yeah?” He called back as he drained the bathtub. One arm reached over to push the door open a crack. “What is it?”

“Are you done in the bath?” Sherlock asked. From the dull, echo-ie quality of his voice, John would say he had his head stuck in the fridge.

“Yeah,” he called back. The last of the water disappeared down the drain and John tied his dressing gown closed, hand on the doorknob. “You can have it if you like.”

“Actually,” Sherlock yelled. “Could you fill it up for me? I have an experiment that requires several gallons of cold water.”

John stopped moving. Hand frozen on the knob, he looked back at the empty (clean) bathtub. But he wasn’t thinking about how many times Sherlock’s experiments had stained the porcelain, or made some other God-awful mess of the bathroom. John was thinking about what Sherlock just asked him: fill up the tub. _Draw me a bath._ It wasn’t for bathing, just an experiment, but John still heard it.

Fucking hell, why did Sally have to say that?

Sudden, inexplicable anger welled up in John’s stomach. Wrenching the door open harder than necessary, he stalked into the kitchen and glared down at Sherlock. Sitting at the table/lab, he was busy poking something in a Petri dish. Why that required John to _draw him a fucking bath_ , he had no clue.

“No,” he said firmly. “Draw your own sodding bath.”

Sherlock’s eyes pulled away from his Petri dishes and slid up to John. “It’s a simple request,” he didn’t say favor—which John was fine with—he said request. As in order. Everything Sherlock ever “requested” was always just an order in disguise. He had enough social decorum to know the word request came off better. But not with John. John understood Sherlock subtext. He was currently the only recognized Sherlock to English translator, and he knew what that meant.

“Yeah, I know,” John snapped. “But I’m not your bloody Jeeves. Do it yourself.”

Petri dishes forgotten for the moment, Sherlock sat back in his chair, looking up at John in bewilderment. “Is there something wrong, John?” He asked calmly.

“Why would there be anything wrong?” John said. “I’m just tired of taking care of all this shit for you. You never do your share of the house work, and now I’m supposed to follow your bloody orders? No, Sherlock. No.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed and suddenly John felt very, very naked. Like he so often did, the younger man managed to strip him bare with those eyes, finding every detail that would explain to him why John was so inexplicably furious about a task he wouldn’t mind on any other day.

It didn’t take long for him to get it. “What did Donovan say?” He asked.

“Donovan?” John didn’t know why he was playing this game, only that he was. For some reason, he suddenly didn’t want Sherlock to know everything that passed through his mind. “How do you know it was her?” Even though that pretty much confirmed it.

A casual (arrogant) shrug. “You’ve been off ever since we solved that last case for Lestrade. Less… patient with me.” John was the only one who was ever patient with Sherlock, so naturally he’d notice the change. “And she’s the only one who still makes comments that offend you. What did she say this time?”

The soft, almost caring look on Sherlock’s face was too much for John. He really was the man’s only friend; he shouldn’t doubt that Sherlock would want to make things better. Even if it wasn’t for John’s benefit, keeping John happy with their living arrangements would make said arrangements better for Sherlock.

John felt so stupid. It all came crashing down on him like two tons of stupid bricks. Sherlock wasn’t deliberately treating him like a servant, that’s just how this worked.

“I’m sorry,” John sighed, letting his crossed arms fall to hang at his sides. “When you were digging about in the mud and asked me to hold your coat, and all I could think about was the dry-cleaning, Sally called me Jeeves.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “It was stupid, but she still bothered me. I know that’s not how you see me.”

Sherlock didn’t say anything, so John kept on with the apology. “So I’m sorry for snapping. I shouldn’t let Sally get to me.” Still, he said nothing. Just sat there, looking at John like he was still deducing. Why would he still be deducing? John just told him the problem. “Because she wasn’t just making a joke about me,” he pressed on, now very confused. “By calling me Jeeves, that makes you Wooster.” Which no, very much no. “And that’s more of an insult than what she said to me.” More of an insult than anything she could ever say to John.

Sherlock still didn’t say anything, but he kept on staring. Now, his eyes were fixed on John’s face… what was he thinking? “Sherlock?” He asked, taking a step towards the table. “I said I’m sorry, okay?”

He blinked and seemed to come back to himself. “Yes, that part I understand.”

“Alright,” John nodded, still confused. “Which part don’t you understand?”

“What is a Jeeves and a Wooster?” Sherlock asked.

Now, it was John’s turn to stare. Because really? That was Sherlock’s question? “You know,” he started. “The show?” A blank look was all he got. “From the early nineties, it was on for about three years?” More staring. “Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie? No? Based on the works of P.G. Wodehouse?” Nothing.

It was Sherlock’s turn to roll his eyes and go back to his experiment. “Please, John. You know I don’t keep up with pop culture.”

“But it’s—it’s fucking Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie!” He yelled, completely exasperated. How could Sherlock not know this? “You must know about P.G. Wodehouse?”

Black curls shook. “No idea. Or interest.”

“Seriously?” He asked. “It’s not just pop culture, Sherlock it’s—” essential to being British? On the boarder of being culturally important? Actually culturally important? “—it’s Jeeves and fucking Wooster!”

Another shrug. “Not interested.”

“Well that’s just—” John didn’t even know how to finish that sentence. By not understanding Jeeves and Wooster, Sherlock didn’t understand why Sally calling John Jeeves was offensive. He also didn’t understand why being Wooster was insulting to Sherlock. And, he didn’t understand the insult in general, which means he didn’t understand the need for John’s apology, which put it all back at square one. As far as Sherlock was concerned, nothing had changed. That was just….

And no, John had no idea how he got from being mad about nothing, to having a rant about important cultural references. No idea whatsoever. Only that he was angry again.

Shaking his head, he turned to walk back to his room. “Fill the bathtub yourself. I’ll be in my room.” For the rest of the night.

A moment later, John threw his door closed with a slam that shook all of Baker Street. This gave Sherlock pause. If John was so bent out of shape over a stupid pop culture trivia (it was pop culture, no matter what he said, it was and therefore wasn’t important enough to keep in Sherlock’s harddrive) maybe… maybe it wasn’t something Sherlock should over look. Damn Donovan for doing this to the man, because now Sherlock had to put it to rights.

Experiment abandoned, Sherlock got up from the table and grabbed his coat. “John!” He called up the stairs, fully expecting not to get an answer. “I’m going out!”

“Get milk!” John shouted back. Sherlock smirked to himself. John always said that when he went out, and he said it as if it would actually happen. They both knew it wouldn’t, but Sherlock supposed it was a sort of a comfort to the other man. John would always ask Sherlock to pick up some milk, and Sherlock would continue _not_ picking up some milk. It was part of their normal life and neither man would replace it for anything.

But Donovan… she was trying to upset their delicate balance. And that would not do. Sherlock needed to restore that balance, and if it called for him to temporarily place some useless information inside his head, he could abide that. For a short while, anyways.

 

~

 

When John came down the stairs the next morning, Sherlock wasn’t in the kitchen. Or on the sofa, or anywhere else. It was kind of strange—but not unheard of—since the consulting detective was often awake before John was, mostly because he hadn’t gone to sleep the night before. So maybe whatever experiment he had in the bathtub wore him out? God, John didn’t even want to go survey the damage. He would look after work….

Oh damn, work. There was a spring flu going around. A violent, virulent strain that the winter’s vaccines didn’t manage to wipe out completely. The surgery was absolutely swamped. John was not looking forward to his day. He was looking forward to coming home even less, coming back to Sherlock’s experiments and his noise. Unless the other man was absent tonight so he could get some decent relaxation, John didn’t like the look of his day.

Grabbing his coat, he walked out of the flat. Ready to heal the sick and hope he didn’t catch it himself.

 

~

 

Sherlock was in fact in his room, but he wasn’t sleeping. The night before, he made a trip to the library and checked out six of the Jeeves and Wooster books; he was going to get all of them, but the series had somewhere around thirty different books. A representative sampling would do, and he would supplement the rest with information from the internet. He also rented the DVD set for the TV show. Four series, eight disks, twenty-three episodes, around nineteen hours total. Not hard to manage if he had a whole night and a day.

Starting with the books, Sherlock breezed through them. Reading wasn’t difficult for him, he just preferred to read useful things. Journal articles, scientific manuals, and things he could use for a case. Popular fiction had no use. Though, Sherlock had to admit, he found them… interesting. Being inside the mind of a twit like Bertie Wooster was as close to hell as Sherlock could probably ever get, but he did enjoy deducing what Jeeves would do to fix Wooster’s problems. And Wodehouse’s style was… enjoyable. Surprisingly so.

When he figured he’d read enough of the literature, he turned to the DVDs. His laptop balanced on the bed, Sherlock hunkered down for nineteen hours of—what he predicted to be—complete boredom. Just because the books were good didn’t mean the television adaptation would be.

To his surprise (again) the show was _good_. Sherlock would even go as far as to call it clever. Wooster was still a simpering moron, but he really enjoyed Fry’s Jeeves. The way he shimmered in and out of rooms was very telling of the character and Sherlock actually started enjoying himself. He didn’t know why John was so bent out of shape. Jeeves was intelligent, resourceful and quick to spring to action. John possessed all of those qualities. So why would the comparison offend him?

Then, at the end of the last DVD, Sherlock remembered what John said: by calling him Jeeves, Donovan was making Sherlock Wooster. It wasn’t the cleaning up after, the ironing, or the favors (orders) that bothered him, it was Donovan’s slight on Sherlock.

Having reviewed all the facts, Sherlock concluded that John was correct to be angry about Donovan’s words. He wasn’t Wooster. Head as empty as a flower pot, completely dependent on Jeeves for damn near everything…. If John wasn’t planning on yelling at Donovan the next time they saw her, then Sherlock sure as hell would.

But there were other things to think about now. If John was Jeeves (Sherlock would stand by that as a very apt comparison) then Sherlock should at least borrow one of Wooster’s character traits: gratitude. Bertie Wooster might be a simpleton who probably didn’t know how to tie his own shoes, but he never took Jeeves for granted. At least, not by the end of the episode. He knows exactly how empty his life would be without him. And much like Wooster, Sherlock knew all too well how horrible things would be without John.

Time to show him that he really does care.

 

~

 

John returned to the flat and half-expected to be pushed right back out the door. “New case, John!” Sherlock would say by way of explanation.

But no. When John walked inside, everything was just as quiet when he left this morning. Actually, it looked… somehow cleaner. Was he hallucinating? Mrs. Hudson helped out, but never like this. Dusting their pictures and straightening piles, delivering laundry, that was where she ended things. Straightening up the whole sitting room, and—Christ—cleaning the kitchen table?

“John,” Sherlock’s warm voice said, making him jump nearly out of his skin. Turning around, John saw Sherlock standing by the table, tea tray in hand. “I made you tea,” he smiled. “If you’ll sit down, you can have it in your chair.”

Little flags of suspicion flared in the back of John’s mind. Sherlock made tea? Sherlock never made tea. Not unless it was for an experiment. Which it might be. That man was not above feeding John strange substances without his consent.

Eyes still on the tea tray, John shook his head. “You never make tea.” Never.

A casual shrug. “I just did.”

Still eyeing the tea tray, John noticed only one cup sitting next to the pot. “Sherlock, did you just make tea for you, then feel bad when I got home and there was none for me?” That didn’t seem a like a very Sherlock thing (feeling bad that he had none to share? No way) but it was better than the thought that Sherlock actually made tea for another person. Namely John.

But Sherlock was determined to be nice. “No,” he said quietly. “I made the tea for you. I knew you would have a long day, so I wanted to help you relax when you arrive home.”

“Long day?” John asked. “How did you know I was going to have a long day?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at that. “Flu is still going around. You are a doctor working at a very active surgery. It’s not a difficult leap to make. You’ve been on your feet all day, dealing with illness, so I made you tea.” He gestured with the tea tray. “So go, sit in your chair and I’ll serve you the tea.”

John wanted to ask more questions, he really, really did. Like how he saw that there was milk in the tea and there was no milk in the flat. Unless Sherlock went and bought milk? That would be a first. But he shouldn’t ask. He should accept whatever mood made Sherlock do this and drink the damn tea, hoping to high Heaven that there was nothing in it besides milk.

“Alright,” he nodded. “Thanks.”

As soon as he was seated in his chair, Sherlock brought the tea into the sitting room and set it down on the desk. Before he handed the cup and saucer over to John, he dropped down it his knees in front of the chair and started removing the man’s shoes.

“What are you doing?” John sputtered, his feet already pulling back, out of Sherlock long-fingered hands.

“Taking off your shoes,” Sherlock said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ve been on your feet all day, taking off your shoes and socks will help you relax.”

Was that what this was about? John relaxing? Well, apparently they weren’t going about it correctly, because John had never felt more tense. Sherlock was up to something—he had to be—and John wanted to know what.

“Sherlock, what the hell is this about?”

Another shrug. “You’ve been working all day. Sit down, drink your tea and relax.”

With that, Sherlock gracefully rose to his feet and went to fetch John’s tea. After he’d placed the saucer in the doctor’s hands, he turned and sort of… _shimmered_ out of the room. “What the hell?” John whispered to himself.

It took another moment for him to remember the tea he was holding. And when he did, John immediately checked it over for questionable contents. He sniffed it, blew across the surface to see if he could find any chunks of whatever. But no. It was just tea.

After a few hesitant sips, John realized that, not only was it tea, but it was John’s favorite kind of tea. It was also very good. Had he known Sherlock could make tea this well (because really, this was amazing) John would’ve told him to do it himself more often. Except, he didn’t tell him to make the tea this time, Sherlock just did it.

John had only just finished when Sherlock shimmered back into the living room. How was he doing that? “Good, you’re finished,” he smiled. There was towel draped over his arm… and suddenly, John was confused again. “Get up, your bath is ready.”

John stopped mid-rise. “My what?”

“Your bath,” Sherlock said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You—” no, John couldn’t finish the sentence. That thought was just too insane.

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded. “I drew you a bath. Hurry up before it gets cold.” And like that, he was off. Turning away, Sherlock walked down the hall to the bathroom, leaving John standing in the sitting room, half out of his chair, quite possibly a dumb expression on his face.

Another moment and John managed to collect himself. He must’ve heard wrong; it had to be something else. Maybe there was something in the bath that Sherlock wanted help cleaning up. Or that he wanted John to clean up, that sounded more likely. It would also explain the tea: buttering John up so he would clean up one of Sherlock’s messier experiments. Except Sherlock never felt the need to butter him up. He just demanded things and usually got them.

By the time he reached the bathroom, John still had no idea what could be waiting for him, but he braced none the less. Apparently, he did not brace for the right thing.

John opened the bathroom door to see… nothing. No goo dripping from the walls, nothing viscous filing the bath. Actually, there was water filing the tub. And a bar of soap laying on the bath rack. John turned around to see his dressing gown hanging on the hook on the door. Also sitting on the bath rack—and John nearly had a heart attack at this—another cup of tea.

“Sherlock,” he whispered, his eyes still fixed on the softly steaming tub. He wanted to look away, but… it was like a train wreck. He literally couldn’t. “What the hell is this all about?”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Don’t you like it?”

It was John’s turn to not say anything. John was completely ready to turn away, and sigh, and warn Sherlock about conducting experiments on him—because this had to be an experiment, it just had to—and he would’ve. If it weren’t for that _look_. The small, almost invisible way Sherlock’s lips puckered. It was the way he looked at John when he really wasn’t sure about what he was doing, and wanted the other man to reassure him. Sherlock was trying. That’s what this was, John understood now. Sherlock was really trying. How could he be mad at that?

The anger drained out of John and he let his eyes fall closed, shaking his head. “Yes, Sherlock. I like it, I really do. I just don’t know what _it_ is. Please, just tell me what this is all about.”

Drawing himself up to his full height, Sherlock rolled his shoulders back. Now he was bracing himself; again, John had no idea what was going on. “Donovan… wasn’t completely wrong.” He said it like the very words left a bad taste in his mouth, but he said it. John goggled.

“What?” He whispered. “What does Sally have to do with this?” Because not only was she the furthest from his mind right now, he had no idea how she related to this at all.

“You said it yourself.” Sherlock said. “Last week at the crime scene, she called you Jeeves. You were offended by it, and after extensive research—”

“Wait,” he cut Sherlock off. “Did you actually watch Jeeves and Wooster?”

He nodded. More goggling from John. “And read several of the books. And I have found that Donovan wasn’t completely wrong in what she said.”

John couldn’t handle this, he really couldn’t. Scrubbing a hand over his suddenly exhausted eyes, he said the only thing that he could think of: “So, you really do see me as your butler?” How could they be talking about this? Sherlock couldn’t really… and what the hell did it have to do with the bath? And the tea? John needed to sit down for a bit.

“No,” he pulled a face at that, his hand waving away John’s stupid question like a gnat. “Of course not. You’re my flatmate, friend and blogger. What part of that includes butler?

“No, Donovan was correct about one thing, and one thing only: you take care of me,” he said. Slowly, John’s hand fell away from his face and he looked up at Sherlock. That was his resolve face, the one he used when he understood something and John didn’t, and he knew that he needed to explain it. No one else got to see that face, because Sherlock never felt the need for everyone else to understand. It would be nice, but nodding and smiling was really all he needed. Not for John though, Sherlock always wanted John to _understand_.

“Jeeves takes care of Wooster.” He said. “What that imbecile did to earn Jeeves’ looking after, I can only guess, but all the same. You take care of me. You make it so the world works with me, and I don’t have to strain to make it understand me. I’m very grateful for what you do.” For the first time, his eyes slid away from John, resting on the bath. “As a way to say thank you, for once, I thought I could take care of you.”

John was… he was touched. Not only did Sherlock appreciate how much work he did to make their life as smooth as possible, but he actually wanted to _thank_ John. A stronger man might’ve started crying, but he knew Sherlock wouldn’t abide that. Instead, John gave a curt nod. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“No trouble,” Sherlock nodded as he pointedly didn’t look at John. Sherlock wasn’t good with thank yous, he was worse with you’re welcomes. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Before Sherlock could escape out the door, John turned and grabbed his sleeve. “Wait, that wasn’t all.” He said. “I was mad at Sally because, if I’m Jeeves… that makes you Wooster.” A lump rose in his throat. Ugh, he was shit at this kind of stuff, especially where Sherlock was concerned. With the other man, actions always spoke louder than words (so John already felt like a complete wanker for missing this) so voicing gratitude was a new thing. “You’re not an idiot, Sherlock, and it was mean of her to compare you to him.”

Sherlock shook his head. “I thought of that as well, and she and I will have words. But I was thinking,” a small smile tugged at his lips. “Why can’t we both be Jeeves?”

An answering smile crossed over John’s face and he nodded. “I think I like that. Good night, Jeeves.”

“Enjoy your bath, Jeeves,” a bit reluctantly, John’s fingers slid off his cuff and Sherlock went to leave. Closing the bathroom door behind him.

With Sherlock gone, and this whole nightmare of misunderstandings behind them, John was free to enjoy the bath that his friend set up for him. As soon as his skin broke the surface of the hot water, John sighed in delight. Jeeves and Jeeves. Two men—friends, partners, call it whatever you like—living together and looking out for the other? Taking care of each other? Well, that was more than alright with him.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not very good at pre-slash, it just feel so unfinished, but I hope everyone enjoyed.


End file.
